Chess960 Showdown 3: Don’t win the lottery!

Sam Shankland won the lottery when Thursday’s Chess960 position
was one of four he’d spent a full day training, but things soon turned
sour! He drew one then lost three games in a row to MVL to trail by 5 points
before the final 8 games of blitz. No-one is mathematically out of contention
in their matches, with Anish Giri finally picking up a couple of wins against Wesley
So. Garry Kasparov entertained with brilliancies and blunders as he scored
3.5/6 against Veselin Topalov.

You can replay all the Champions Showdown games so far using
the selector below:

And here’s the commentary on Day 3, that features interviews
with Anish Giri, Leinier Dominguez, Garry Kasparov, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and
Peter Svidler:

Day 3 was the last day when we got to see rapid Chess960 in
St. Louis, since the final day will feature 8 blitz games worth 1 point each.
There’s still something to play for in all of the matches:

Let’s take them one at a time:

Kasparov 7.5 – 10.5 Topalov

Just to prove that it is possible to capture the Beast from Baku smiling and laughing... occasionally! | photo: Austin Fuller, official website

This match-up was again great fun, and after a winless
second day Garry Kasparov bounced back, winning two and almost three of the
clashes. The 13th World Champion described the first as a “big fight”, with the
initiative swinging from side to side, though overall it was Garry with White
who was strategically on top. His time management was suspect and it seemed he
might let it all slip away, but he described himself as “very proud”
with the solution he found right at the end:

He spotted that the pawn to push was the furthest back, the
h-pawn, with the other pawns and knights keeping the black pieces out of the
picture. Topalov resigned.

Garry described himself as probably “too overwhelmed” with
that game, as he failed to solve his opening problems in the second game and
then, down on time, made a carbon copy of his blunder the day before, taking
away retreat squares from his bishop with 16…Ne7??

17.b4! was a very cold shower. There were ways to make the
blunder look almost like a sacrifice to open up the white king, but Garry was
too shaken to find them…

It was an eventful day!

After that, though, he bounced back and was winning the
first blitz game until what he described as a “disaster” occurred:

75.d8=Q! Nxd8 76.e7 a2 77.exd8=Q a1=Q 78.Qb6+! allows White
to win the new black queen or give mate, while after throwing in the check
75.Nd5+? the black king came to c5 and there was no longer the same winning
idea. Topalov could hold the ending with Q vs. Q+N.

That was a missed study-like win rather than a blunder, though, and Garry managed to brush
off the disappointment and go on to win the final blitz game:

24…Rb1+! came as such a shock to Veselin that after 25.Kxb1
Nc3+ he resigned, though after 26.Kc1 Qxa4 27.Bxf8 material will be more or
less level and Garry thought it would still be a hard position to win.

Garry was happy with the day overall, and noted he was
enjoying the Chess960 mission: “It’s not a new chapter, but basically a new
book on the game of chess!”

Nakamura 9.5-8.5 Svidler

Svidler-Nakamura is still the hardest match to call | photo: Austin Fuller, official website

The deadlock was finally broken here as Hikaru Nakamura took
the lead by virtue of winning the second rapid game. As Peter Svidler commented
,“I just played that slowly and poorly, which is not a good combination against
Hikaru!”

Peter ensured the US star’s lead was as small as possible,
however, by winning the blitz section 1.5-0.5, much to his own surprise. It would have been another good day in any case, since once again he got to analyse the starting
position with Kasparov!

Giri 7 – 11 So

Wesley So had been the only unbeaten player in the Champions
Showdown, but finally Anish Giri woke up to win two of their four games on
Thursday. Anish commented,

I think the position was more complicated and that suits me
better than him… I was trying to create something out of nothing, and today I
could create something!

It still looked as though his time management was going to
be an issue in the first game, but Wesley, with plenty of time on his clock,
failed to spot a tactic until it was too late:

24.Rxc6+! Bxc6 25.Qd6+ Kb7 26.Qxe7 left Black a pawn down
with a weak king, and Anish made no mistake converting. The players then traded
wins in the blitz games.

Giri explained his goals for the day!

After yesterday I had two goals:
1) To have a day good enough that you invite me to the studio, like you did
today - that’s accomplished!
2) Another was to play good enough to go into the last day with 8 blitz games
having a theoretical chance of tying the match, so that also is achieved…

He admitted, however, that his only real chance of overall
victory is if, “Wesley will start getting nervous, if he’ll see this $10,000 in
his head going around!” That $10,000 is the difference between winning the
match and getting $30k or losing and getting $20k, with $25k each for a draw.

Shankland 6.5 – 11.5 MVL

When you can't believe all your numbers have been drawn... | photo: Lennart Ootes, official website

Perhaps Sam Shankland felt a bit like Frank Marshall, who unleashed his famous gambit on José Raúl Capablanca, only to see it picked
apart at the board. Sam had explained the day before that he prepared for the
tournament by doing a dry run, playing four days of training games against
strong opponents with exactly the same schedule as he’d face in St. Louis. There
were four random positions there, and he reflected that it would be nice if one
of them turned up in the Champions Showdown itself…

Careful what you wish for, since on Thursday that’s exactly
what happened!

This was his chance… but it also proved to be his downfall.
In the first game he got to show the offbeat idea of playing an early b4
followed by 5.Rb3!?

From there on things went downhill for the US Champion, and on balance a
draw was a good result. MVL soon took over, winning a knight ending in the second
rapid game, then winning a knight up in the first blitz game. In the final game
he squandered a huge advantage but was helped out by Shankland blundering a
rook with 41…Rd1??

42.Qf3+!, doubling the attack on the rook with check, was game over. Maxime summed up that, “I think
today I just enjoyed the position”. It hadn’t been Sam’s position after all.

Aronian 12 – 6 Dominguez

This match looked like the one which might be over with a
round to spare, since Levon made it four wins without reply, until finally in
the last game of the day Cuban fans had something to cheer about. 34…Ra3? allowed
a nice finish:

35.Rxc7+! Kxc7 36.Nf8! Ra1 37.Kxe4! Black resigns. Dominguez
admitted he was close to blundering with 37.e8=Q, which would have allowed
Levon to show off all his trickster skills with 37…Rxf8+! 38.Qxf8 Rf1+ and Black
wins instead.

Dominguez is a former World Blitz Champion, but
beating Aronian, another former Champ, 6:2, is asking a lot on the final
day!

A chess article can never have too many Garry Kasparov facial expressions... | photo: Lennart Ootes, official website

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